' 



STA.TE PRIDE. 


AN 


OKATION 


DELIVERED REFORE THE 


fiallwjieait ani Societies 


OF THE 


STATE MILITARY SCHOOL, 


AT CIIARLESTOX, 


Dia tlio otli xVpi'il, IQGO, 


By william I). PORTER. 


I'nU.ISlIEI) EV UKQITE.ST. 


C ir A P. L E S T O N : 

STEAM-POWER PRESS OF WALKER, EVANS & CO., 
No, 3 Broad Street. 

1860. 








































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ST^TE EEIEE. 


AN 

OEATION 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE 

CaIli0|)ean aiA ^oljtccjjnic Societies 

OF THE 

STATE MILITARY SCHOOL, 

AT CHARLESTON, 


On. tlie 5tli Ai>ril, 1860, 

Bi WILLIAM Dl^POETER. 


PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 




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CHARLESTON: 

STEAM-POWER PRESS OF WALKER, EVANS & CO., 
No. 3 Broad Street. 

1860. 
















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lion. W. D. Porter. 


Citadel Academy, April 9th, 1860. 


Dear Sir : — It was with feelings of patriotism and delight that we listened, a few 
evenings since, to your eloquent, able and chaste address, delivered before the Cal- 
liopean and Polytechnic Societies, at the Annual Commencement; and allow us, in 
returning our wannest thanks to you, to say, that our most sanguine expectations 
were far exceeded by your able effort on that occasion. But we Avould not be ful¬ 
filling the mission of those bodies, of which we are representatives, were we to allow 
so meritorious an address to be confined alone to that audience, whose pleasure it 
was to hear it delivered. AVith the view, therefore, to the dissemination of the 
truths therein inculcated, we respectfully solicit a copy for publication. 


With much respect, we remain your obedient servants, 

AV. B. GUERARD, 

J. THURSTON, 

J. AV. BROAVN, 

J. A. SITGREAVES, 
S. D. STEEDMAN, 
G. AV. DARGAN, 


Committee 

Calliopean 

Society. 


1 Committee 
> Polytechnic 
J Society. 


Broad Street, April 10th, 1860. 

Gentlemen :— I thank you for your kind appreciation of the address I had the 
honor to deliver before your two Societies : and if you think it in any way calculated 
to promote the cause of political truth or patriotism, I very cheerfully place it at 
your disposal. 

AVith great respect. 

Your obd’t serv’t, 

AV. D. PORTER. 

Messrs. GUERARD, » Committee 

THURSTON, \ Calliopean 

BROWN, j Society. 

Messrs. SITGREAVES, A Committee 

STEEDMAN, > Polytechnic 

DARGAN, j Society. 




ORATION. 


The institution under whose auspices this celebration 
takes place, is a State institution, established by public au¬ 
thority, and sustained by the public favor and the public 
treasure. In this, as in her whole policy of Education, South 
Carolina has been no less bounteous than wise. Believing 
that intelligence and virtue are the only true basis of freedom, 
and that men must be instructed in their rights and duties 
before they can be fitted to maintain the one or discharge 
the other, she has sought so to train her sons that, in what¬ 
ever exigency of peace or war, she may never be wanting in 
statesmen to guide or soldiers to defend her. And for this 
liberal policy, she has found an ample recompense in their 
single-hearted devotion. No Commonwealth has been more 
faithfully served. Whether at home or abroad,—in council 
and in the camp,—when her praise was on the lips of men, 
and, if possible, still more, when the voice of calumny was 
raised to traduce or defame her—at all times and in all places 
—they have been proud to claim her soil as their natale 
solurn, and have adhered to her name and her cause with 
more than the ordinary steadfastness of filial devotion. Nor is 
she unworthy of their love. Although her years do not reach 
back into the dim shades of antiquity, and the light of his¬ 
torical truth shines bright and clear upon every step of her 
progress; yet is there nothing for which she has cause to 
blush—no act of dishonor to be concealed—no spot on her 
escutcheon to be hid away. Her record is a record of 
achievement and glory. She has her trophies and her holy 
places of renown ; her patriots and martyrs, whose immortal 
memories are consecrated in heroic story for the inspiration 


6 


of generations to come ; her titles to independence and her 
Anglo-Saxon liberties, unshorn of their integrity and more 
than once defended from aggression by her own victorious 
right arm. Other States may boast of their territory and 
resources, of the number of their factories and workshops, 
of their ships and their men; but in this briglit galaxy of 
Commonwealths that spans a hemisphere and touches either 
ocean, there is not one that surpasses South Carolina in the 
wise and patriotic unanimity of her sons—a unanimity that 
embraces not only a chivalrous loyalty to her honor, but 
that harmony of feeling, interest and opinion, and that par¬ 
ticipation in the whole spirit of her character, which is the 
strength and perfection of a well-ordered State. Untorn by 
the bitterness of faction or the excesses of party, she can 
count on the faithful service of all her sons. Her house¬ 
hold is a household of honor, and her children rise up and 
call her blessed ! 

This ardent feeling of State pride on the part of our people 
has frequently been called in question. It has been said that 
it is a morbid and dangerous sentiment; narrow and con¬ 
tracted in itself, and antagonistic to the broader and more 
comprehensive spirit of nationality; in a word, that it is self¬ 
ish and unpatriotic. 

Let us examine this element of character and of political 
faith—for it is both—and see whether, as a sentiment, it is 
true, healthy, and genuine, or the contrary; and whether, as 
a principle of political action, it is friendly or hostile to the 
highest interests of the country, which are the interests of 
safety, independence and well-regulated liberty. 

The feeling of affection for our mother country is so uni¬ 
versal, that we come to regard it as a physical sensation more 
than as a moral sentiment. In its simpler forms, it is com¬ 
mon to the savage and civilized man. Each of them, with¬ 
out stopping to analyze the feeling, is conscious that there is 
an indescribable something about the place of his birth 
which belongs to no other place, and that, with his foot upon 
his native soil, he stands more proudly erect, and, if need be, 
more boldly defiant than upon any other spot of earth. In- 


rr 




animate objects become dear to him as living things, and 
each well-remembered locality has its magic and its charm. 
It matters little whether philosophy trace this phenomenon to 
a primitive, inexplicable impulse of the heart, or to the prin¬ 
ciple of association, or to a combination of the two; certain 
it is that nature is at the bottom of it for wise and good pur¬ 
poses. How could it be otherwise? There, the light of 
Heaven first visited his eyes, and the sounds of nature saluted 
his ear; there, a mother’s care first ministered to his uncon¬ 
scious being; the pure and simple pleasures of his childhood, 
the bright dreams of his young ambition, all radiant with the 
glories of many-hued hope, and still untouched by disap¬ 
pointment, and the cares and sorrows of his graver years— 
for sorrow consecrates and hallows a spot even more than joy 
—all have a habitation there; and there, too, are the tombs 
of liis fathers, and, it may be, the graves of his children ! Of 
his fathers and his ehildren! How deep and strong is the 
sympathy of blood, kindred, race! It is the ligament that 
binds the generations together. It carries us back into the 
shadowy past and forward into the undiscovered future, and 
makes us feel that we are but links in a great chain of hu¬ 
man being; it holds us as with the hand of fate, and speaks 
to ns in a voice of mysterious, inexorable bidding. More 
than reason, more than interest, more than force—far above 
all fictions, theories and compacts, it asserts its Divine au¬ 
thority in the construction of States, and lays the foundations 
on which Government is built. Here is the germ of States 
and Nations; for these are not mere accidental combinations, 
or geographical arrangements, but moral entities or beings 
drawn together and held together by the ties and necessities 
of our nature. 

Undoubtedly, the idea of nationality is complex; language, 
climate, locality, and other circumstances, enter into its com¬ 
plete conception; but underlying and controlling ail these, 
there will be found in every State one predominating race, 
around which, as a centre, the nation has formed itself, and 
with which all other incoming persons, of whatever blood or 
tongue, must combine and assimilate, as the tributary streams 


8 


which flow into some great river, swell its volume without 
changing its distinctive character or course. Hundreds of 
tribes are represented in every State in this Confederacy, but 
the Anglo-Saxon element holds the ascendancy in all, and 
gives character and uniformity to their life, laws, and insti¬ 
tutions. And just in proportion as the character of the popu¬ 
lation becomes more compact and homogeneous, and the 
feeling of consanguinity or brotherhood closer and stronger, so 
does the spirit of nationality become more concentrated and 
intense. For it is this feeling of association, this solidarity 
in a State, that gives to the individual a direct interest in the 
achievements and renown of her people; that stimulates him 
to acts of brilliant daring, or affecting self-devotion, and 
causes him to feel, as the greatest of earthly calamities, his 
compulsory separation from the land of his sires. Save that 
of the mother weeping for her children, and refusing to be 
comforted because they are not, there is not a human cry 
more strangely, sadly wild, of deeper and more soul-touching 
pathos, than that of the patriot exile. It comes from the pro- 
foundest deeps of the heart. It is like the last sigh of a 
stricken hope. Listen to Kossuth, the wondrous orator of the 
independence and brotherhood of nations: 

“ I am like a wandering bird ; I am worse than a wander¬ 
ing bird. He may return to his sun^mer home; I have no 
home on earth. Oh, my people! thou heart of my heart, 
thou life of my life, to thee are bent the thoughts of my 
mind, and they will remain bent to thee, though all the 
world may frown. To thee are pledged all the affections of 
my heart, and they will be pledged to thee as long as one 
drop of blood throbs within this heart. Thine are the cares 
of my waking hours; thine are the dreams of my restless 
sleep. Shall I forget thee but for a moment? Never! never! 
Cursed be the moment, and cursed be I in that moment, iit 
which thou wouldst be forgotten by me!’’ 

Listen, also, to the voice of God’s chosen people, carried 
into captivity, and speaking by the tongue of the sweet singer 
of Israel: 


'i 


9 


“ By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we 
wept when we remembered Zion. 

“ We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst 
thereof, for there they that carried us away captive required 
of us a song, and they that wasted us required of us mirth, 
saying, sing us one of the songs of Zion. 

“ How shall we sing the Lord’s Song in a strange land ? 

“ If I forget thee, oh, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget 
her cunning. 

“ If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the 
roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief 
joy.” 

It is true, that the idea of a State implies the idea of Gov¬ 
ernment, but it does not imply the idea of any particular 
Government or form of Government. Much error has grown 
out of a disregard of this distinction. A State may exist as a 
body politic, although its internal Constitution, or form of 
Government be changed, or entirely abrogated. It may be a 
monarchy to-day, a republic to-morrow, and an empire the 
day after, and yet not lose its identity as a political commu¬ 
nity. France has undergone all of these transitions within a 
comparatively short period of time, without ceasing to be at 
any time an independent sovereign State. England, that was 
a commonwealth under the great Protector, is the same Eng¬ 
land that now claims to be a Constitutional Monarchy under 
Victoria. Government is only the agency or organism which 
a State, or, what is the same thing, the people of a State in 
their sovereign capacity, have instituted for the preservation 
of their peace, happiness, and safety. Not only the insignia 
of authority, the sceptre, the ermine, and the mace—not only 
the functionaries and ministries of Government in all its 
departments, legislative, judicial and executive, the assem-: 
blies that make the laws, the magistracies that distribute jus¬ 
tice throughout the land, and fleets and armies, which are 
the assertors of national right, and the avengers of national 
wrong; not only do all these proceed from them, and belong 
to them, but also the very actual sovereign power itself which 


10 


lies beyond and above all these things, which makes them, 
and can unmake them and reconstruct them, either legally 
by virtue of reservations in the lundamenial law and accord¬ 
ing to the forms thereof, or extra-legally by virtue of that 
high transcendent rule and reason, the salus popiili, the in¬ 
stinct of self-preservation, which, with peoples as with indi¬ 
viduals, is a law and a constitution unto itself, paramount to 
all other laws and constitutions. The powers of Government 
are derivative, delegated, and held in trust; the powers of the 
State, as contra-distinguished from mere Government, are 
original, self-existent and incommunicable, save and except 
so far as they may be given in trust for the safety and happi¬ 
ness of the people. The inquiry is not now where this prin¬ 
ciple or right of ultimate sovereignty resides, whether in a 
few or in many, whether in the numerical majority, or the 
majority of those qualified to govern. What I maintain is, 
that it does not reside in the Government, or its functionaries, 
or departments, although they may exercise, by delegation, 
powers which are the results and manifestations of sover¬ 
eignty. Folly or pusillanimity may surrender for a time the 
independence of a people ; fraud may steal it away ; rapine 
and violence may set their iron heel upon it, and trample it 
in the dust, but the end is not there; the title will live in 
abeyance, and, at the fitting time, will re-assert itself by some 
act of signal retribution and redress. In our own day, Hun¬ 
gary had already made good her declaration of independence, 
and established her ancient riglit of self-government, which, 
as her prophet and leader declared, had been hers a thousand 
years ago, when Russia, with armed intervention, pitilessly 
crushed out the righteous cause for a while; and the small 
State of Sardinia, “ like little body with mighty heart,’’ the 
herald and pioneer of Italian independence, wrought out, 
through fire and blood, her redemption from the despotic rule 
of Austria. AW honor to the gallant little State that did not 
falter in her appeal from tyranny to the God of battles, and 
in her progress from oppression to deliverance and liberty! 
Addressing her in the words of Grattan’s exultant and inspir¬ 
ing invocation to Ireland on a similar occasion—that of Irish 


11 


legislative independence—I would say: “Sardinia is now a 
nation. In that new character I hail her, and bowing to her 
aiignst presence, I say, esto perpeHiaP’ 

But if the right of a State to independence cannot be lost 
without all hope of recovery by fraud or violence, still less 
can it be lost by a free and voluntary delegation of any por¬ 
tion of its powers for the conduct of its affairs and relations, 
whether internal or external; and the reason is, because the 
power so conferred is exercised for it, in its own behalf, and 
by its own consent. I^or is its sovereign character in any 
degree impaired or diminished by such act of delegation. 
To devolve upon another the exercise of a power which per¬ 
tains to sovereignty, is not to constitute that other a sovereign. 
Every municipal corporation, town or city, exercises, more or 
less at discretion, the power of taxation, which is certainly 
one of the highest attributes of sovereignty—its very top and 
summit, so to speak—but it will hardly be claimed that such 
town or city becomes thereby a sovereign ; or, that the State 
which has conferred tliis faculty for purposes of its own, has 
thereby impaired its own sovereignty. Nations frequently 
enter into treaties and leagues for perpetual union, and im¬ 
pose upon themselves restrictions and prohibitions under the 
most solemn sanctions; but they have never been con¬ 
sidered on that account a particle the less independent 
nations. In a word, the main proposition which I propound, 
and seek to enforce, and which I believe to be true, not only 
in the abstract, but in the concrete, and particularly in its re¬ 
lation to our complex and two-fold system of Government,is 
this: that a State is something higher, more sacred and more 
permanent than its government, whatever the form, charac¬ 
ter or designation of the latter may be: that government is at 
best only an agency or instrumentality—temporary, fluctuat¬ 
ing, with the seminal principal of change imbedded in it; and 
that the State or Nation ivliich governs itself, whether that 
self-government be carried on by its agents, internally or ex¬ 
ternally, directly or more remotely, in a separate or in a con¬ 
federated form of polity, or in both conjoined and interwoven, 
is still in token and by virtue of such self-government, un- 


12 


shorn of her essential liberty, still free, sovereign, and inde¬ 
pendent. How much does this theory elevate our concep¬ 
tions of the State, of the dignity of her office and mission ? 
Her origin is divine. Her foundations are laid in the primal 
instincts and necessities of our nature. Blood, language, re¬ 
ligion in its most catholic sense, are her bond of union; 
right is her rule in theory, justice her rule in practice; A 
people’s hopes are in her keeping; a people’s love does her 
reverence. Her government may become an oppression, and 
her rulers tyrants, when they should be guardians and bene¬ 
factors ; but the State is still the loving mother of all, natural 
and kind, generous and true, and worthy of all affection, 

-dearer slill, 

Even in extremity of ill.” 

The Government may be laid prostrate in the dust,and the 
rulers scattered like leaves in the storm-wind, but the State 
will survive, hopeful and unharmed; and catching new life 
from the regenerate spirit of her sons, will feel the life-blood 
course in a fuller, swifter current through her veins, and ac¬ 
knowledging with a quick instinct the glorious impulse, with 
all her faculties stretched to their utmost tension, with eye 
and ear intent, and heart and hope bravely throbbing with 
the delicious sense of liberty re-claimed, she will bound for¬ 
ward and upwards, like a bird imprisoned, on her new career 
of happiness and honor. Surely, Government is the handi¬ 
work of man, but States and Nations are of God. Woe to 
the tyrants who despoil them, and declare that they shall 
no longer exist, for they are moral essences, and may not be 
destroyed by human hands, for human purposes. Their 
functions and courses are ordained of Heaven, and what 
Milton has said of the angels in his sublime description of the 
battle waged by the rebel thrones against the throne of God, 
may not inaptly be applied to them : 

‘‘ For spirits that live throughout, 

Vital in every part,— 

Cannot, but by annihilating, die. 

All heart they live, all head, all eye, all ear, 

All intellect, all sense ; and as they please. 

They limb themselves; and color, shape or size 
Assume, as likes them best.” 


13 


The people of the United States have a two-fold political 
existence. They live under two systems of government—a 
system of local government for internal purposes, and a 
system of general government for external purposes. But 
the people of the several States called both into being—they 
breathed into both the breath of life. In fashioning their 
local governments, and also in fashioning their federal govern¬ 
ment, they established Constitutions. A Constitution is a 
law in its most solemn and authentic form—a fundamental 
law ; and out of this fundamental law grows the Govern¬ 
ment ; there its functions, its powers, and its limitations are 
all defined. The very end and aim of constitutional govern¬ 
ment is to preserve and secure the liberties of the people. To 
what end and for what purpose were the Constitution and 
Government of the United States ordained and established ? 
Was it to confound the then existing nationalities? To 
breakdown the lines of partition between the States? To 
alienate that which is inalienable ? To pluck from the States 
the very pride of their hearts, the very flower of their being, 
the very life of their life? Oh, no! Not to kill, but to 
preserve; to cherish and perpetuate, rather than to despoil! 
But, if there is any virtue in what has been said touching the 
sovereignty of a State, it will furnish a clear and easy solution 
of these questions. The people that govern themselves in 
their affairs, domestic and foreign, either separately or in com¬ 
mon with others, through chosen agents and by delegated 
authorities, have not parted with their sovereignty, and are 
still in fact and in truth a nation. Let us not invert the 
order of things; let us not transpose the regular and natural 
procession of being; let us not overlook the great political 
truth, that constitutions do not make peoples, but peoples 
make constitutions. Otherwise, we shall confound the acci¬ 
dent with the essence, the changeable with the permanent 
and fixed. Nor is a constitution anything more than mere 
parchment, except so far as it is the expression and embodi¬ 
ment of the genius, hopes, aspirations, habits, and life of the 
people for whom it is designed. “Privileges,” said Mira- 
beau, “shall have an end, but the people is eternal.” The 


14 


remark is capable of a larger generalization. Constitutions 
and governments have their day, but the State, as it precedes, 
so shall it outlive them, for it is perpetual. 

It is in this view particularly that the old Thirteen States 
stand out in the light of their own native and unborrowed 
majesty, to challenge our loyalty and love, our gratitude and 
admiration. Before the Union was, they were; and what¬ 
ever there is in our history that mankind will hold in the 
longest remembrance, and cherish with the most affectionate 
veneration, was achieved by them in their original capacities. 
The sagacious love of freedom that knew the importance of 
an abstraction, and could discern the tyranny that lurked in 
a preamble; the civil wisdom that gave to the world State 
papers not surpassed, in ancient or modern days, in reach of 
thought, gravity of argument, and elegance of style; the 
courage that dared, with the scantiest means and at the 
greatest hazards, to confront in war the colossal might of an 
empire capable of coping with a world in arms, whose naval 
thunders woke the echoes of every sea, and the tread of whose 
armies kept })ace with the circling hours ; the Doric grandeur 
of the Declaration of Independence; the fortitude and con¬ 
stancy of soul that could endure seven long years of unequal 
war, through cold and hunger, and privations of every kind : 
now marking their track over the snows with the blood of 
their unshod feet, now advancing, with raw and undisciplined 
recruits, to meet the shock of veteran batallions, the con¬ 
querors of many a hard-fought field, and now retreating 
after the fight, defeated, but not discouraged—beaten, but still 
unconquered ; the whole conduct of a revolution, from its 
first glorious beginnings to its triumphant consummation, as 
if it were some normal change, with so much of justice and 
moderation, by such regular steps of progression, so clear of 
all stain, so free from abuse or excess of every kind, that it 
seems like some grand epic poem, for the instruction and de¬ 
light of mankind—a lesson to the oppressor and an example 
to the oppressed in times to come—the merit and the praise 
of all this belongs to them. Theirs, too, is the glory, after the 
acknowledgment of independence, of having chastised licen- 


15 


tioLisness into liberty, and brought out of the fever and fer¬ 
ment of revolution, civil order and free representative govern¬ 
ment; of having allayed whatever of jealousy, composed 
whatever of strife, and rebuked whatever of distrust may natu¬ 
rally have sprung up and did spring up between the rival 
States ; and finally of having devised and put into opera¬ 
tion a scheme of government as curious in its detailed con¬ 
trivances and adjustments for the conferring and checking of 
power, as it is bold and comprehensive in outline; which 
sought to produce not unity, but “a more perfect union,and 
to reconcile the idea of a common government for particular 
purposes and of specified powers, with the principle of sove¬ 
reign self-government; and the aim and end of which was 
to consolidate the Union without consolidatingthe States, and 
to combine these last into a. confederate Republic of Repub¬ 
lics, like so many several stairs, not fused into one luminary 
of surpassing brilliancy and magnitude, but gathered all into 
a resplendent constellation, where each particular star stands 
out and sparkles with its own unborrowed lustre, and the 
blended radiant glory of the whole is the common contribu¬ 
tion of all. 

In considering the relative importance of the States and 
the Union, it may be added that, as the former called the latter 
into being, so can they extinguish it at a stroke, quietly and 
peacefully, without the sword or the bayonet, without the 
levying of war or shedding of blood. So simple a process 
as that of refusal on their part, or on the part of three-fourths 
of them, or even of a bare majority, to choose Senators to 
Congress, or to appoint Electors of President and Vice-Presi¬ 
dent, would at once stop the wheels of the Government, and 
reduce the Union to a state of utter helplessness. What, then, 
would become of the national power to make and execute 
the laws, to punish treason, to collect taxes, to blockade ports, 
and levy war? What of its sleeping thunder, and its* un¬ 
sleeping sovereignty ? All gone, and none so poor to do them 
reverence ! The JVation, without purse or sword, without 
will or power, prostrate, helpless— 

Like a deer stricken by many princes;” 


16 


the States, erect and vigorous—even more than now in the 
full mastery and control of their functions—their Govern¬ 
ments in undisturbed operation—their powers and resources 
perfectly at command—with duty, love, obedience in their 
train, like true sovereigns, throned in the hearts, and girt 
about with the affections of their people. This contingency 
may happen, or may not happen, in our day, or in other days. 
But the fact, that a concurrence for such purpose may not be 
had for an indefinite period, or, indeed, at any time, does not 
affect the question. The very potentiality of it, demonstrates 
that our system is Federal, and not National; that the Gov¬ 
ernment is the offspring of the people of the States, and not 
of the people collectively ; and that the States, in their cor¬ 
porate capacity, possess the power, by mere inaction, by virtue 
of their mere vis inertise, to bring the Union to a final catas¬ 
trophe. 

If it be true, then, that the States stand in this relation to 
the Union, how worthy are they to hold the first place in the 
affections of their citizens, and how just and wholesome a 
thing it is to recall the feelings of the people to their primary 
allegiance, and their thoughts to the fundamental character 
and principles of the form of government under which they 
live. The popular mind is apt to be captivated and led astray 
by imposing exhibitions of physical power and grandeur. 
The idea of a great central Government, of a grand consoli¬ 
dated Nation, engrossing all cares and ministering to all wants; 
sending its flag—symbol of its power—into every sea and 
every land; extending the arm of its protection over the citi¬ 
zen, whenever and wheresover he may go, and clothing him, 
as it were, with the attributes of its own inviolability, is won¬ 
derfully well calculated to affect the imagination, to excite 
the pride, and to take captive the reason and the judgment. 
What we see and feel, fills the eye and wins the heart. The 
sun in the heavens, the centre of our system, is the object of 
worship to many, and of admiration to all; but the great 
delegating Source of light and energy, of grace and joy, is 
beyond and above. In matters of government, as in other 
matters;, if we would find the truth, we must think, and 


17 


analyze, and resolve the concrete into its elements ; nor fear 
to follow oiir reasoning and proclaim our convictions. The 
real might of the Union is in the might of the several States; 
in the light of their countenance it lives, and without their 
favor it must perish; its physical power is but the concentra¬ 
tion and result of their collected forces ; and would you seek 
for the foundations of its intellectual and moral power, you 
shall find them in the talents, and virtue, and patriotism, 
which come up to its service from these independent Com¬ 
monwealths; in the public opinion, mightier than bayonets, 
which is there generated and diffused; and in their faith and 
confidence, and their loyalty and love, which are its only hope 
of duration, and which may be won, but cannot be bought or 
compelled. 

It is historically certain, that the Thirteen Colonies wrought 
out their deliverance as separate communities, and became 
severally sovereign and independent States. And so effectu¬ 
ally did they do their own work, that even the Confederation, 
which was a mere league, offensive and defensive, was not 
signed until two years after the Declaration, and three years 
after the beginning of the war. It is equally certain, that 
long before the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the 
States had their separate local governments in full and effi¬ 
cient operation, and that no one of the States would, or could 
have been bound by the Constitution, unless its people had 
accepted and ratified it. But I forbear all further statement 
of political facts. The doctrine under discussion is so elemen¬ 
tary in principle, and is of such great and overmastering im¬ 
portance in itself, that it ought not, and need not be embar¬ 
rassed by any possible controversy about facts or history. 
All that is needed for the purpose of its legitimate applica^ 
tion, is the acknowledgment, that before the adoption of the 
Constitution, the right and faculty of absolute ulterior power, 
subject only to the moral law and the law of nations, resided 
in each State, or in the people thereof; that each of them was 
de jure and de facto, a nation, and responsible only to the 
tribunal of nations. A learned writer on political law, has 
said, that Sovereignty is the attribute of a State as Omniscience 
2 


18 


is of God. The illustration is happy, and to the point. In 
each case, the property or quality cleaves to its principal, and 
is inseparable from it; the union of the two is essential in 
the nature of things ; as we can form no idea of God without 
his Omniscience, so we can form no idea of a State without 
its Sovereignty. And as knowledge may be imparted to men 
in abundant measures, though in different degrees, without 
impairing the fountain of all knowledge in the bosom of the 
bountiful Giver, so may a State, in humble imitation of its 
great original, mete and parcel out whatever powers and au¬ 
thorities are adequate and necessary for the purposes of gov¬ 
ernment, without derogating anything from its own inherent 
and unfailing source of supply. And we may find a test and 
confirmation of the truth of this idea, in what is now univer¬ 
sally acknowledged as an elementary political principle—that 
upon a dissolution of Government, of whatever kind and in 
whatever way, its powers and authorities fall back upon the 
source from which they sprang; or, in other words, result to 
the State or people from whom they were originally derived, 
and for whom they were held in trust. 

It is a truth older than history, as old as man and empire, 
that all power seeks to centralize and consolidate itself But 
more especially is this the law of political power, the power 
of Government. In whatever department—law-making, judi¬ 
cial, or administrative—the instinct and the word is to build 
up its safety, to extend its jurisdiction, to strengthen and en¬ 
large its domain. In all years and centuries, in whatever 
climes and countries, the unceasing strife has been between 
liberty and power; in despotic countries, on the part of the 
many to reclaim their liberties from the one or the few; in 
republican countries, on the part of the rulers to extend, by 
usurpation or construction, the powers committed to them. 
No form of Government is exempt from this infirmity. The 
Republic is no modern invention ; ancient Greece was full of 
them, and Rome, the mistress of the world, in the height of 
her fortunes, when her Consuls and Pro-Consuls plundered 
provinces, and the spoils of empire lay at her feet, still claimed 
to be a Republic. But all of them sooner or later found their 


19 


masters. Rome, by reason of her relentless policy of cen¬ 
tralization, among other things, fell at last under the dominion 
of the Caesars; and the liberties of the fierce democracies of 
Greece, which had been crippled but not cloven down by 
‘‘ that dishonest victory’’ at Cheronea, withered away and per¬ 
ished by their consolidation under the headship of Philip, 
and the domination of Macedon under his successors. The 
records of the past admonish us of the fragility of Govern¬ 
ments, and give but little encouragement to the hope, that 
the liberties of any people will be immortal; but whether for 
weal or for woe, for life or for death, our lineage, our history 
and our instincts, are all on the side of freedom, and impel us 
to the aspiration, that however short-lived our career, it shall, 
at least, be not inglorious; and that whatever name we may 
leave, shall become, not an everlasting reproach, but an in¬ 
spiration and a guidance to the nations that shall follow us ! 

Experience has shown that the tendency of our Govern¬ 
ment is towards consolidation. A latitudinous construction, 
under which powers not granted have been claimed and exer¬ 
cised, and the powers granted have been unwarrantably ex¬ 
tended and perverted, is the shape in which it manifests itself. 
Whatever may have been the original design, the proclivity 
of the system in its practical workings is manifestly towards 
the centre. The doctrine of the general welfare,” if left to 
take its course, cannot, in the nature of things, result other¬ 
wise tlian in the consolidation of the Government, making it 
one of general instead of specific legislation, and resolving all 
limitations upon authority into the will of the majority of Con¬ 
gress. With this majority united and controlled by a common 
interest, what security is there for the rights and interests of 
the minority ? The Courts cannot entertain political ques¬ 
tions; and the mere title of an Act, the calling by a Consti¬ 
tutional name, that which, if called by its true name, would 
be unconstitutional, deprives them of all jurisdiction. It is a 
curious but significant fact, that this tendency to the usurpa¬ 
tion or abuse of power, has, in no instance, been rebuked or 
efficiently arrested, except by the action of sovereign States; 
by the action of Kentucky and Virginia, in 1798, in the matter 


20 


of the Alien and Sedition Laws; by that of Georgia, in 1827, 
in the matter of the Cherokee Controversy; and by that of 
South Carolina, in 1832, in the matter of the Tariff. The 
States are, in fact, the only counterpoise to the unchecked 
authority of Congress. They are the true sentinels over the 
action of the Government and the liberties of their own peo¬ 
ple. The protection of these last is the highest duty with 
which they can be charged; and upon the vigilance, courage 
and fidelity with which they discharge it, will depend the 
only hope of the success of our institutions. When truth 
and justice cease to be the rule of action in a Government, 
laws and written Constitutions are only the badges of its 
perfidy. When the spirit is gone, the dead letter becomes 
worse than a mockery. It is in exigencies like this, that the 
power of the State comes, like some guardian angel, to the 
rescue of her people. “ I consider the Constitution a dead 
letter,” said John Randolph, after a long experience of the 
workings of the Government, and with a political wisdom 
which was not the less profound, because sometimes clothed 
in quaint and cutting phrase; “I consider the Constitution a 
dead letter; I consider it to consist, at this time, of the power 
of the General Government and the power of the States—that 
is the Constitution. You may intrench yourself in parch¬ 
ment to the teeth, says Lord Chatham; the sword will find 
its way to the vitals of the Constitution. I have no faith in 
parchment, sir—I have no faith in the Abracadabra of the 
Constitution—I have no faith in it; but I have faith in the 
power of that Commonwealth, of which I am an unworthy 
son, and in the power of those Carolinas and of that Georgia 
in her ancient and utmost extent to the Mississippi, which 
went with us through the valley of the shadow of death, in 
the War of our Independence.” When injustice, which 
is a principle of corruption, has fastened itself on the body 
politic—or the Government, from whatsoever cause, topples 
to its ruin, then, and in both cases, it is the function and the 
glory of the States, which are self-subsisting and independent, 
to throw the shield of protection over their citizens, to defend 


21 


them alike froni tyranny and anarchy, and to provide for 
them new guards and securities for the future. 

But some will exclaim, ‘‘ Are we not, then, a nation ? 
Are we to be bereft of all national character? Shall we 
have no common country?’’ Oh, men of little faith! Is it 
not enough that we are citizens of a Commonwealth—of a 
great Confederate Republic, known and respected throughout 
the world ? We have not now, and never had, a distinct¬ 
ive name as a nation, for ‘‘American” is common to the 
whole continent on either side of the Isthmus; and under 
the Constitution we are the same “United States of America” 
that we were under the articles of Confederation. But we 
are not the less Americans that we are Carolinians, and that 
we love the earth of our dear mother-land better than all 
the earth beside. Is there a son of Scotland, who, as his 
warm heart fills and overflows with the holy memories that 
hallow the home of his fathers, 

“ Never to himself hath said, 

This is my own, my native land !” 

Or an Irishman, whose heart is in the right place, that has 
not mourned over the woes of his own beautiful isle—so 
blessed of God—so cursed of man ; and refused with scorn 
to find a consolation for her wrongs in the triumphs and 
splendors of the imperial Union! Or an Englishman, 
who, as he unrolls the glorious panorama of his country’s 
history, and gazes in rapt vision on the long and shadowy 
procession of her dead poets, and orators, and statesmen, 
and heroes, and martyrs, and calls up from out the storied 
past the deeds of civic and martial renown that have given 
her name to immortality, hath not felt, and ought not to be 
pardoned for feeling, that it is not Britain, but England, 
that is the first and dearest love of his heart! Ancient 
Greece, with all her bright achievements, and her imperish¬ 
able influence on the human mind in arts and arms, in let¬ 
ters and divine philosophy, was not one nation. Her hun¬ 
dred cities were all States, and Athenians, Spartans, Thebans 
—all were Greeks. Athens was a city of some 100,000 or 


22 


150,000 free inhabitants, when, under Miltiades, at Mara¬ 
thon, she gave her single breast to the shock of the Persian 
hordes, and rolled back upon its bed the multitudinous tide 
of invasion, and in a single battle, by a single victory 
for freedom, laid the foundations of a supremacy that has 
brought her name down to our times as the most heroic and 
glorious of States. Sparta was but a city when her three 
hundred'^ kept watch and ward at Thermopylae for the liberties 
of Greece, and left her but one survivor of that field of blood 
and glory, to tell, at Lacedaemon, and to the centuries as they 
roll, the immortal tale that they died there in obedience to 
the laws of their country. Wherever there is one brother¬ 
hood, one tongue, one altar—wherever there is one common 
interest and common feeling—these will suffice to keep alive 
the spirit of nationality in a people, and without them it can¬ 
not live. If the States of this Union were united in spirit 
and in truth ; if in their origin, sufferings and triumphs, they 
could recognize the bonds and pledges of one hope and one 
destiny; if they could feel, and act as if they felt, that the 
peace and existence of one-half the country was not a bauble 
to be sported with, or a stake to be gambled for, or a spoil to 
be plundered or stolen ; if for the keenest hate and the 
gloomiest fanaticism, could be substituted that charity, with¬ 
out which there is no brotherhoodif, in a word, they could 
be, and were, in their mutual relations, natural, and just, and 
true—then, indeed, would we have a common country! And 
it would need no prophet to tell us so, for her service would 
be our delight, and in our heart of hearts we would enshrine 
her image as the Divine Patria —our friend, our benefac¬ 
tress, and our bountiful, loving Mother ! 

But without all these— without all these — 

‘‘ Alas poor country, 

It cannot be called our country^ but our grave!'' 


Gentlemen of the Calliopean and Polytechnic Societies : 

I selected a theme that I thought would engage your inter¬ 
est. You are Cadets of South Carolina, and will soon become 
her citizens, her soldiers, and her statesmen. She has cared 


23 


for you and nurtured you ; and the instincts of your hearts 
will teach you to cherish and defend the hearth and the 
home around which all the household charities and the dear¬ 
est affections of our nature begin and cluster. 

Be proud of your State. Give to her your first fealty—the 
allegiance of your hearts ! The thing which most wins our 
admiration in the great historical characters of antiquity, is 
the intensity of their public virtue,—the singleness of purpose, 
the enthusiasm of loyalty, the heroic spirit of self-devotion, 
with which they served the State. The day may not be dis¬ 
tant when you will be called to try the temper of your patriot¬ 
ism. A voluntary political Union cannot long survive the 
disruption of all social ties—and the people who have come 
to the deliberate conclusion that their peace and happiness 
are not safe in the keeping of an exterior Government, will 
be traitors to themselves and their posterity, if they do not 
provide new and sufficient securities for the future. From 
whatever quarter—whether from within or from without—an 
assault may be made upon the liberties of any State, the last 
battle for their preservation will be fought within her lines 
and intrenchments. Her people will take their stand around 
the graves of their fathers, and defend to the last the homes 
and the heritage of their children. And when our beloved 
State, speaking with authentic voice the bidding of her 
people, shall announce that she has taken her honor and her 
interests into her own keeping, and shall summon her sons to 
maintain inviolate her limits and her liberties, you will not 
wait for the incitements of eloquence or the deductions of 
logic. Your hearts will leap to her cry, as to the cry of your 
mother, and your blades to her defence; and whatever may 
betide, you will stand or fall, with arms in your hands, upon 
the soil on which you were born, and upon whose loving 
bosom you fondly hope, sooner or later, to be folded to your 
last, long sleep ! 


JUL 19 1306 




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